Even the band wanted to get a picture with Larry Leeds ’46, being photographed here by his wife, Ginger Feuer, on her phone.
Leading the March
Larry Leeds ’46, who graduated 80 years ago, returned to campus for the first time in 30 years. You’ll understand that he’s been busy.
What’s it like to be the senior Lawrentian at Alumni Reunion Weekend? For Larry Leeds ’46, it meant leading the Grand March — on foot — accompanied by his wife, Ginger Feuer, addressing the 50th reunion dinner as an honored guest, and entertaining a constant stream of fellow Lawrentians eager to trade stories and simply shake his hand.
It was Leeds’ first time back on campus since his own 50th reunion in 1996, and he liked what he saw.
“I attended Lawrenceville during the whole of World War II,” he said, “and they could barely fill the Forms. The country was still emerging from the Depression, so finances were an issue, and with the demands of wartime, it was difficult to get good teachers.”
Despite the challenges of the time, Leeds made the most of his Lawrenceville years. He played golf and tennis and took the wrestling team to the 1945 Eastern Championship.
He also excelled in math. “My math teacher, Wendell Federici, bet me 25 Jiggers I couldn’t score 100 percent on his final,” recalled Leeds, referencing the ice cream-based favorite at the old Jigger Shop. “He gave me a 99½ because I left out a single plus or minus sign.
“He chose not to collect,” Leeds added after a moment of reflection.
Leeds penned a column for The Lawrence called “Exchange Corner,” a compendium of news from high schools around the country. The column was typically a mix of the mundane, the amusing, and the gossipy. One notable entry described a “hard-fought soccer game at Pomfret … when suddenly a stray dog dashed on the field and bit the goalie, who fell to the ground as the ball rolled through for the deciding tally.”
After earning his undergraduate degree from Yale and an M.B.A. from Wharton, Leeds served three years in the U.S. Naval Reserve before joining the family business, a growing apparel company established in 1857 as a men’s shirt maker.
Success followed, but the path wasn’t linear. Beginning as a trainee, he turned the family business into Manhattan Industries, the Fortune 500 company that made Perry Ellis a fashion icon. At age 59, a hostile takeover, fueled by junk bond king Michael Milken, forced him out as chairman and CEO. Leeds found a new career on Wall Street as an industry analyst, and six years later, when many of his peers were retiring, he was invited to launch Buckingham RAF Partners, a hedge fund focusing on the retail, apparel, and footwear industries. Leeds grew a $10 million investment into $1.6 billion, with 14-year compounded annual returns of 24 percent. He retired as chairman of Buckingham Capital Management in 2019.
Leeds’ professional success was accompanied by personal tragedy — the losses of his first wife, Dalia, in 2016, and his beloved son, Cary, in 2003. “Cary competed in six U.S. Opens and five Wimbledons,” Leeds says with a father’s pride. “He retired after six years on the circuit as No. 6 in the world.”
Now 97, Leeds still manages his family’s investments and hasn’t stepped back from his philanthropic and other interests.
Leeds established the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning as a memorial, calling it “the outstanding achievement of my life thus far.” The tennis and educational facility in Bronx, N.Y., features 22 courts, 10 bubbles in winter, and a state-of-the-art clubhouse. It also serves as the flagship home of the New York Junior Tennis League (NYJTL), the largest nonprofit youth tennis and education program in the United States., and provides free tennis lessons, academic tutoring, and a range of community programs. The New York Times hailed it as “one of the city’s best new works of public architecture” after it opened in 2015.
Now 97, Leeds still manages his family’s investments and hasn’t stepped back from his philanthropic and other interests. He continues to serve on the boards of the Cary Leeds Center; the Hudson Institute, a public policy think tank; NYJTL; and Prep for Prep, which prepares promising students of color to attend elite private schools. He is a trustee emeritus of NYU Langone Health.
He also remains deeply committed to the Cary Leeds Center, emphasizing its success. “Thousands of kids play at our center,” he said, “and dozens of graduates of our center’s training programs get scholarships at some of the finest universities in America.”
With his legacy secure, one might think Larry Leeds could slow down and take it easy. But we don’t see that happening anytime soon.